M-G-M
in Culver City was the greatest studio in Hollywood. Add to that the history
of its current resident, Columbia / TriStar,
and one would think that a tour of Sony Studios would be a film-lovers
dream come true.

Not quite.

Oh, Sony's new guided tour
is respectable. It has its interesting moments. But it doesn't even begin
to live up to its potential. Compared to other available studio tours,
I'd have to say that it ranks below both the Paramount
tour and the Warner Bros
tour.

[ Warning: It's
been several years since I last took the Sony tour, so my review of it,
below, is out of date. With luck, they may have improved it since then. I'll try to update
it soon. ]

This is a guided walking tour
- no trams here. It lasts about two hours, and is a realistic look at the
inner workings of a modern movie studio (no snapping sharks here, folks.)
But they charge less than Paramount's $35 per person for the privilege.

And, alas, like Paramount,
they also manage to take what should be a fascinating subject and manage
to make it seem pretty mundane.

The
tour begins across the street (to the east) in the impressive atrium of
the cantilevered Sony Pictures Plaza building. You park underneath, go
to a small office on the north side of the atrium lobby, pay your $33,
and then usually wait a few minutes for the tour to begin. (Be sure to
phone ahead for reservations.)

You can spend this time looking
at the mini-museum Sony has erected on the east side of the atrium, hosting
a small number of exhibits from their current and past films. On my visit
this included props and sets from “Stuart Little”, and costumes
from movies like “Bugsy”. (Other exhibits have included items
from "Charlie's Angels" and "The Patriot.")
There’s also a fast food area and some tables, if you want a snack.

Eventually, your guide for
the tour (in our case, a friendly young woman) will emerge to escort the
tour group across the street and past the studio gates.

The
first thing you’ll probably be shown is the Thalberg building (named after
the young genius who virtually ran M-G-M at its prime.) They’ll take you
for a quick trip into its small lobby and show you a display featuring
a few of the Best Picture Oscars won by Columbia/TriStar over the years.

Which brings up one not-so-small
problem.

Since Sony now owns the studio
(which is now home to their Columbia & TriStar Pictures), I suppose it is to
be expected that the emphasis might be on Columbia, rather than on M-G-M.
And it is.

But
Columbia is a relative newcomer to this Culver City lot. They spent most
of their time at what is now called the Sunset-Gower
Studios in Hollywood (until 1972), and spent their latter years in
the Valley (sharing with Warner Bros what was then called “Burbank Studios.”)
It was only in 1990 that Sony finally purchased this historic Culver City
lot. For more than six decades (from 1924 to 1986), and all of Hollywood's Golden Age, this was M-G-M Studios.

As
such, most of the studio’s real history is the history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Yet although many of the buildings
on the lot are named after former M-G-M greats, M-G-M itself gets only
an occasional nod during the tour - a mention or two of boss Louis B.
Mayer (often anecdotes about him being a penny-pinching slave-driver),
or a passing reference to a classroom where Judy
Garland & Mickey Rooney
went to school as kids on the lot.

Far more attention is paid
to Columbia’s recent productions, such as “Party of Five”
and “Jeopardy!”, than to the 60 years when this lot was the crown
jewel of Hollywood, with “more stars then there are in heaven.” Since Sony
is running the tour, that is not surprising - but it is disappointing.

Another drawback to this, and
other studio tours, is the absence of permanent outdoor sets.

In Hollywood’s Golden Age,
when shooting on location was almost impossible, most major studio lots
were filled with large outdoor sets: New York brownstones, European neighborhoods,
and Western towns where most of the movies’ outdoor scenes were shot. Studios
then were a virtual world of their own.

MGM was no exception. Take
a look at the DVD of "That's Entertainment," which includes
an informal tour of this studio's back lots filmed back in 1974, for a glimpse at
what MGM used to look like. But don't expect to see the residential neighborhood
where Mickey Rooney spent 20 years playing 'Andy Hardy', or the city
street where Gene Kelly danced in "Singing in the Rain,"
or the train station where Fred Astaire filmed "Band Wagon."

Alas, those back lot sets
are
a thing of the past. While Paramount has retained its giant New York
set, and both Warner Bros and Universal have huge back lots,
it appears that not a single outdoor set remains on the Sony lot. They
were demolished long ago, and the land they used to sit on (on the
studio’s
west side) was sold to developers who put up rows of tract homes.

Big outdoor sets are something
that I think most visitors probably expect to see on a studio tour; instead
we are treated to row after row of those faceless, factory-like sound stages
where indoor scenes are shot. It’s a problem at Paramount, and it’s a problem
here. And it’s one reason why Warner Bros - which
still boasts a wide range of colorful outdoor locales - remains the most
interesting of the studio tours.

From the Thalberg building,
the tour heads west, under an impressive bridge displaying giant posters
from “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Lost Horizon”, emerging on
a street lined with faux storefronts. This new Main Street is the product
of the recent $100 million restoration effort mounted by Sony, which has
given the old studio a much brighter, more colorful look. The facelift,
with its landscaping and fresh paint, has softened that usual industrial
edge that plagues studios, lending more of a campus-like feel to a good
portion of the studio lot. As such, it’s just a more pleasant place to
spend time.

A
right turn takes the tour north towards the historic M-G-M gates along
Washington Blvd, and to a group of buildings that include a theatre which
was used for studio screenings, a commissary/restaurant (still in use),
and the former office of studio chief Louis B. Mayer.

Our guide told us that after
Clark Gable’s
wife, Carole Lombard,
died in a plane crash, the stars of M-G-M gave Gable a standing ovation
when he returned to the couple’s regular table at this commissary. Unfortunately,
they didn’t let us go inside - the guide said that it was being used...

And that is a continuing problem
on this tour - and other studio tours around town. Many times we had to
pass by interesting sites without going inside because they were being
used...

For
instance, I was told by someone who took the tour a week before that I
would probably be shown the water tank used for staging those elaborate
swimming scenes in those old Esther Williams'
musical extravaganzas. But we weren’t - it was being used to shoot another
movie.

The “Donny & Marie”
set? Sorry, we couldn’t see it because it was being used.

There is far too much “walking
past” and not enough “going in” to suit me...

From there, we followed the
north wall west, past a two-story apartment building of sorts that our
guide said was once used as a kind of dormitory for performers, complete
with matrons who stood guard to prevent fraternization between male & female employees.

Passing a former schoolhouse
for child performers and a rehearsal hall where Astaire used to practice
his dance moves, we finally went inside for one of the more interesting
stops on the tour: the scoring studio, where they record the background
music for movies (and other things.)

First they showed us the modern,
glassed-in control room, full of electronic keyboards; then we stepped
back in time a bit, as we entered the actual recording studio, a bare-wood-walled
room where they say the acoustics are so outstanding that they haven’t
painted it in decades - for fear of disturbing the audio magic. According
to our guide, the room is booked for years in advance, and Whitney Houston
refused to record anywhere else.

(My friend says that on his
earlier tour they skipped this scoring studio because it was being used...)

We
also went paid a visit to the wardrobe department, where we saw original
costumes (on dummies) from movies like “My Best Friend’s Wedding”
and “Zorro”, as well as more mundane costumes (from current TV shows)
on racks being tended by the staff.

Then it was out for an extensive
journey through the “industrial” portion of the studio - strolling down
alleys past one giant, barn-like sound stage after another.

This is the
dreary but authentic reality of the modern-day movie studio, where most
business consists of renting sound stage space for interior shooting by
production companies.

As we strolled past historic
Stage 27, where “The Wizard of Oz” was filmed, our guide blithely
noted that one could still see some of the original “Yellow Brick Road”
inside - but only if they took up the floor! We didn’t even get a peek
inside...

But we did go inside a few
of the sound stages.

In
one, they had been filming the Harrison Ford
movie, “What Lies Beneath.” Still on display were mock-ups of residential,
New England-style homes - exact replicas of the actual homes they had shot
on location in Cape Cod.

In
another, Stage 19, we saw the (idle) set of the TV series “Party of
Five.” (This was back in early 2000, when the show was still in production.) They
took us on a quick tour of the show’s kitchen and living room sets. They
like this show... a later stop showed us the set of "Salinger's"
the restaurant & bar owned by the family on “Party of Five.”
(We even got to sit in the booths.)

One of the more interesting
stops took us upstairs (via a tiny elevator or a very long flight of stairs)
to the workshop of an independent company which paints huge, realistic
murals (mattes) as backdrops for the movies. [See the photo
below.]

We walked through the sound
stage which normally houses “Wheel of Fortune”, but on our visit
(as luck would have it) the set had been broken down and packaged in crates
for hitting the road on one of the game show’s national tours.

We had better luck on the more
permanent set of “Jeopardy”, where we sat in the seats overlooking
the well-known game board and contestant podiums while our guide gave us
a few details about the show and host Alec Trebek. (As you might expect,
the familiar set looks considerably different when it is dark.)

We also got a peek inside a
dim sound stage with a movable ceiling, and stepped into another where
the “flying monkeys” in “The Wizard of Oz” were originally filmed
as the actors hung from the high ceiling.

(Speaking of sound stages,
Sony Studios is home to the largest sound stage in the Western Hemisphere,
Stage 15. It is approximately 42,296 square feet, and about 40 feet
high. They filmed "Spider-Man", "Air Force
One" and "Hollow Man" in Stage 15.).

As we headed back towards the
gate, we were passed by an extra who looked like he had just been in a
bad traffic accident - half of his head and shoulders covered in bloody,
gory makeup. He smiled as he passed by - and I wondered if he was a shill.
So I asked my friend who had taken the tour earlier if he had also seen
“bloody guy” on his tour. He hadn’t. So, it was apparently just one of those
spontaneous encounters.

The bottom line about this
tour is that it’s reasonably priced, and if you have never seen the inside
of a Hollywood movie studio before, it’s well worth a visit. But if you’re
expecting something special because this was once the historic M-G-M Studios,
or if you’ve already been on the Paramount or Warner Bros tour, save your
money - there’s nothing particularly unique to see here.

But experiences and opinions
differ, of course. A fan of Seeing-Stars writes to tell me that the Sony
tour was his favorite studio tour. He reports that his tour group was small
(just six people), and that when their tour guide spotted Will Smithon the lot, filming "Men In Black
II", she took the them over to meet him, and that Will spoke with
the group. They also got within feet of Dabney
Coleman and Simon
Baker of "The Guardian".
They also enjoyed going on the set of "Jeopardy!" and
felt that the tour seemed "less restrictive and less commercial," and
that they "really felt like we got behind the scenes."

In September of 2004, Sony
announced that it had bought MGM (the company) for $5 billion. There's a touch of irony
in this, since Sony has occupied the old MGM studios for years. Sony acquired
MGM mainly in order to get the company's library of films, which is believed
to be its most valuable asset. It constituted the biggest library of color
movies in the world, including franchises such as "James Bond",
"The Pink Panther" and "Rocky". Word is that MGM will
continue to operate as a private company (which the Sony will own), and
will continue to put out several films a year. But now that they own the
MGM name, perhaps the Sony studio tour will focus more on the MGM heritage
on the lot.

Update: as of 2010, I'm told
they have added an outdoor scenic backlot of a New York brownstone
(which was recently used for "Burlesque", a film starring
Cher and Christina Aguilera.)

Price:$33 per person. You pay for the tickets at the Sony Plaza building
across Madison Street from (east of) the main gate. Make reservations in
advance, by phoning (323) 520-TOUR. Or, you can now buy your tour tickets
online by going to this
link.

Parking: an underground
garage beneath the same Sony Pictures Plaza atrium - free with the tour.

Getting
there: Sony Pictures Studios is located at the northwest corner
of Washington Boulevard & Overland Avenue, in Culver City. The studio
is bounded by Washington Boulevard (on the north), Culver Boulevard (on
the south), Madison (on the east) and Overland (on the west). The main
gate faces Madison. Parking is in the tall atrium building across the street
(east of) the main gate, which is also where the tour begins. / See directions
for Sony Studios.

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